A mother in Polk County, Florida, may lose custody of her 7-year-old son Justin, who weighs a staggering 254 lb. ( 115 kg)!

Joyce Painter's seven year old son, Justin, weighs 254 pounds. She says the Department of Social Services is threatening to remove him from her home if he doesn't lose weight.

Painter says she first noticed her son's weight gain when he was three, "He played T-ball and soccer, did things just like every other kid, but he was gaining weight." Painter says she's taken Justin to doctor after doctor over the past four years, but nobody has been able to pinpoint the cause of his rapid growth. She's been told it could be genetic, it could be hormonal or it could be his diet. Painter says she's regulated Justin's meals for a while now, "I've got him on three meals a day. A meat and two vegetables, that's it. There's no snacking, I removed all the chips and cookies. I quit buying it." Despite those efforts, Painter says her son continues to gain weight.

I have heard Sumo wrestlers eat one large meal a day. From everything I've read, the key to losing weight is to eat 5 or more small meals a day. No, that doesn't include anything wrapped in cellophane or a foil pouch. High fructose corn syrup could be the culprit, too. And, hey, is there soda in that fridge? Is he drinking water? I feel badly for this kid. Nutrition taught in school is completely wrong. They don't address beverages, or cutting back on bread. My kids, thankfully, are perfect weight. If my kids were at risk for being taken away from me, I would learn EVERYTHING about weight loss and hire a personal trainer. I'd rather sell everything I own than lose my kids.

The problem Leah is trying to recall is Prader-Willi Syndrome which it may well be however since there are no easy tests for this it is hard to say.

If it is PWS then three normal sized meals a day will be far too many calories. I've worked with PWS sufferers who've remained extremely fat on diets of less than a thousand calories a day. The combination of a disorder that means the body needs almost no food and yet tells the brain it is constantly starving always seemed very cruel.

I only hope that the cause is something more treatable and that his parents are able/willing to deal with it.

#13:I don't think anybody is attacking the child. Rather, we consider it very likely that his mother is full of crap, and is shoveling him with food despite what she says.

There are all sorts of crazy (or at least semi-odd) people out there. In gradeschool & highschool, I had one good friend who was *perennially* (all 12 years) the fattest kid in the class by a long shot. This was back when most kids were NOT fat, so "Bob" was mocked constantly (kids are sweet, huh?). Anyhow, for whatever reason, Bob didn't want to be fat and ridiculed, so he actually tried to cut back and control the quality of what he ate. But his mother was intent on making him eat a lot! It got to the point that he asked his friends to lie if his mother asked if he had eaten while he was out with us. We were supposed to say that "we all had pizza". Otherwise, she'd be stuffing him with food as soon as we walked in the door.

Nonetheless, ultimately, it up to these parents to raise their kid(s) in whatever (screwed up or not) manner they feel best. It's gonna be tough for Eric, er... Justin to undo this when he is older, but a lot of us didn't have perfect parents. If you start taking fat kids away from their parents, skinny kids are next, and then kids who climb on rocks and kids with chickken pox. Where does it end?